Florence Crittenton Services of Colorado

Florence Crittenton Services is a Denver nonprofit with a mission to educate, prepare, and empower teen mothers and their children to become productive members of the community. For 125 years we have made it possible for teen mothers to succeed as parents, scholars, and professionals, while ensuring that their children become kindergarten-ready. Florence Crittenton Services pioneered a nationally recognized two-generation program model that helps teen families break the cycle of poverty through education, health and wellness, and economic and social asset building. Our services are designed to address the needs of the whole child through an asset-based, trauma-informed lens. Our Student and Family Support Program (SFSP) is a team of Family Advocates providing customized wraparound services to teen mothers. Our campus is a family resource center that includes an Early Childhood Education Center, the Alethia E. Morgan, MD Health Center, and the on-site Florence Crittenton High School.

A community that empowers young moms to break the cycle of poverty and succeed as parents, scholars

Goal One: Optimize our service model.

Goal Two: Activate people, resources and processes on our campus.

Goal Three: Grow our services to reach more teen families.

We continue to invest in our Early Childhood Education teachers and leaders. While many of our regular ECE practices had to be adapted during COVID-19, our staff’s dedication to continued learning and growth remained steady. All of our ECE teachers used the opportunity for more time at home to boost their professional credentials, completing a minimum of 50 hours of online training though the Colorado Shines Professional Development Information System (PDIS), and often much more. Training topics included Reporting Child Abuse and Neglect, Infant Safe Sleep, Standard Precautions, Shaken Baby and Head Trauma Abuse, and Playground Safety. They also did several other trainings that revolved around Health and Safety practices. Several teachers increased their credential level by completing additional child development modules.

The FloCrit campus closed to in-person learning in the spring of 2020 due to COVID, with our young moms continuing their high school classes remotely from home. FloCrit families immediately suffered massive consequences from the statewide shutdown. Many of our families lost jobs that kept a roof over their heads and food on the table. Most of our young moms were confined to small living spaces housing large families, and usually required to supervise the schoolwork of their younger siblings, while also taking care of their own child. Despite many challenges from COVID-19, the entire Florence Crittenton team worked together to adapt our programs and services to this new reality. Through the efforts of our Student and Family Support Program (SFSP) team and our Early Childhood Education (ECE) Center teachers, FloCrit was able to mitigate many of the worst effects of COVID for our teen families. From the beginning of the pandemic, we regularly provided each family with packages of basic needs supplies, including diapers, wipes, formula, clothing, grocery cards, and other supplies customized for each family’s needs. Throughout the pandemic, our SFSP team provided regular, online, one-on-one support to moms so that they could continue their post-secondary and workforce planning, access community resources, learn new parenting skills, cope with social-emotional challenges, and build relationships. As more teen families faced the threat of eviction during this period, the SFSP team also stepped up its support for housing assistance with the support of key community partners. The entire ECE team was firmly committed to returning to the classroom as soon as possible, and in September 2020, after careful preparation, the ECE Center opened its doors again. We are so proud of our teachers for providing this essential service for our FloCrit community, giving more young moms the opportunity to progress academically at home while their children were learning, too.